South Carolina-Kentucky Post Game Quotes

Oct. 9, 2003

SOUTH CAROLINA-KENTUCKY POST-GAME QUOTES October 9, 2003

USC Head Coach Lou Holtz

It was a heck of a ball game. Fans certainly got their money’s worth. … Any time you win an SEC game, that’s what it’s all about. Kentucky played exceptionally well. We had problems when they had Lorenzen and Boyd in the game at the same time. We were not ready for Boyd. He had 73 yards rushing. We can’t let that happen. …

We don’t play fourth down well. We couldn’t get the momentum when Boyd was in there. … There were two things we couldn’t let happen, and they did. Their quarterback ran well, and they gained yards after the catch. We knew they would throw and catch some. .. Dondrial Pinkins did not start particularly well. Syvelle Newton had some big plays. Our kicking game was a plus. We punt returned well. … It was good to win. We’ve got a lot to correct, a lot to do. … All of a sudden, we weren’t playing well. … Daccus did a nice job at the goal line. … Travelle Wharton has a bad sprain and is out. Don’t know how bad it is. John Strickland has a bruised knee. … Once we lost the momentum, we could not recover from it. … Couple of great catches by Syvelle Newton. Whiteside will make some plays for us also. … We let them get the momentum. … Our corners played well. Corey Peoples and Isaac Stackhouse. Eisland, Robinson, excellent ball games. But we were not consistent on our pressure from the outside. … Some years, we wouldn’t have won this game. … We keep losing bodies. Losing Wharton is a blow, but we will carry on. … Demetris Summers still recovering from groin injury. We need to run better than we did. … I don’t know which team will show up. We’ve played one horrendous game and one great game. … This reminded me of the Tampa Bay game (Monday night). … Our freshmen played an excellent game in critical situations, which we haven’t had much this year. … We mixed our defense, tried to do some different things. Their quarterback got hot, scrambled, we said we could not let that happen. … Lorenzen said we’ve got a hard-hitting team. … If the score were 27-7, I would be really happy. It’s just that the quarterback scrambled and got us discombobulated and in trouble. … Abney is so good. We tried to mix up our punts. We felt we needed to make something happen on our punt returns, and we almost blocked a punt. … Moe Fountain is a great player. He is so mature in the way he prepares and practices. I can’t say enough good things about him. He is really special.

South Carolina Player Quotes Daccus Turman “During the off week we practiced hard. We practiced well this week and we came out and played good tonight. The offense played well up front. We were able to make a few plays tonight because of their fine play.”

Dondrial Pinkins “We started slow tonight, but we got things going in the second half and started to play real good. We might have slacked off a bit later in the game – we need to learn to play 60 minutes each game. We need to play strong in the fourth quarter. Everybody played good tonight – here and there – we all need to play well for 60 minutes. But I am pleased with our effort

(vs. LSU next week): “I expect them to blitz a lot, play man coverage and stop the run game so we have to pass more.”

Demetris Summers “We played pretty good – we played tough. We have to fight to win and do our best. Kentucky did a lot of stunting up on the line and I knew I’d to run hard because they kept coming.

(vs. LSU): We will prepare hard and practice hard. We will listen to the coaches in practice and we’ll be alright. We haven’t watched any film yet on LSU. We will do that this weekend. I did see them play a little against Georgia, but I don’t know much about them.”

Dunta Robinson “This was a big win for us – our first win in the SEC this year. We lost two games in the SEC, but we have a lot of games left. Even though it’s good to win, I’m disappointed with the way the defense played in the fourth quarter. I was real satisfied with our play until 5 minutes left in the game and then they made that nice drive. It was time for us to comeback and make a stand. Today was a great win. We have a lot of tough games left, but we have a lot of home games left and we usually play well at home. But they are tough games.”

(on losing to UT and coming back this week): “It was a heartbreaker last week in Tennessee. But all good corners have to have a short memory. I always to compete – I love to compete, but it happens to the best of us and I knew this game I had to come back and play hard.”

Moe Thompson “It’s our first conference win and we are happy about the victory. We played our hearts out and we played our hearts out. It was alright playing inside tonight, it was my first time and I had to adjust. I was just going after the ball and playing football (on the Lorenzen hit).”

Kentucky Head Coach Rich Brooks

“We had some injuries. It hurt us to lose Durrell White. Raymond Fontaine hadn’t practiced in the past three days. We were thin at outside linebacker.”

“Our quarterback was illegally hit and was knocked out. He was unable to return. That was the second late hit of the game.”

“Jared Lorenzen has a concussion and I don’t know when he will be able to return. The officials are supposed to protect the players, particularly the quarterback and particularly a good quarterback like Jared Lorenzen. There is no excuse for any official to miss those hits.”

“I’m proud of our team to come back in the fourth quarter. We played poorly in the first half in every phase. We didn’t play good in the third quarter.”

“You’ve got to give Boyd credit. He came in and gave some spark to our offense. Derek Abney did some good things. South Carolina did a good job of getting ahead early and staying ahead.”

“We didn’t handle things well early. We had numerous holding penalties. We hurt ourselves with mistakes and penalties most of the time.”

“In the fourth quarter, everyone got excited and thought ‘Maybe we can win this thing.’ It was one of the first times we played well in the fourth quarter – unfortunately, it was too late. We finally executed late in the game – Boyd made some plays.”

On losing close games: “It sickens me. It’s no fun. Playing close and having moral victories doesn’t mean anything to anybody in that locker room.”

On Shane Boyd: “Boyd did a pretty good job trying to get our offense going. He is one of the reasons we got back in the game.”

Kentucky player quotes

Draak Davis TB

“We could not get in the flow we could not find our niche. We knew we were capable of exploding.”

On the pitch “I was thinking about getting to the end zone and I lost it. I know should have caught the ball”.

Jared Lorenzen QB

On Coach Holtz “He came and congratulated me and wished me well the rest of the season. Growing up and watching him coach at ND it was a lot fun to play against him. And it was great to get the chance to meet him. I got to play on his turf and he has beat me all four times.”

On the hit “I don’t really remember much. I rolled out and got hit pretty good. I am not sure if it was a late hit but I am not the one to blame the officials.

Nick Seitze Center “We aren’t playing consistent. We have to many penalties and we make too many mistakes. The better team won tonight.”

On Boyd “Boyd was ready to go. He had to twinkle in his eye on the sideline. He did stuff out there that I don’t know how he did.”

Shane Boyd QB On getting a chance to play “Our players feed off me. I love this game and blessed with the ability to play. Everyone should have a twinkle in their eye just to be able to play.”